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A Victory for Naftogaz in Stockholm
UKRAINE · Report · 07 Jun 2017

A long-awaited decision by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce on Gazprom’s lawsuit against Ukraine’s Naftogaz was handed down on May 31st. Many details are still unknown, but critical elements are positive for Ukraine. The panel rejected the take-or-pay provisions Gazp...

Growth at Last
ARGENTINA · Report · 07 Jun 2017

Chief of Cabinet Marcos Peña might have been in a hurry to announce some still-unpublished news. But despite his politically-driven urgency, in the run-up to the October midterm elections, he seems to be right. Though April activity data still shows mixed results, the general economic picture has...

Current structure of growth appears to be forint-positive
HUNGARY · In Brief · 07 Jun 2017

The Central Statistical Office (KSH) published three important data sets in the last 24 hours:1. Yesterday, it reported retail sales, which rose by only 2% yoy on day-adjusted basis in April, bringing the January-April yoy growth rate down to 3%, from 5.6% in the corresponding period of 2016;2. T...

South Africa Enters into a Recession during the First Quarter of 2017
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 06 Jun 2017

​South Africa technically moved into a recession as figures released by Statistics South Africa indicate that the economy contracted by 0.7% during the first quarter of 2017. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, and since the first quarter’s -0.7% q/q growth ...

Politics: PRI Surprises, PAN Disappoints
MEXICO · Report · 06 Jun 2017

We don’t yet have final results from Sunday’s state elections, but the preliminary results as of Monday afternoon make clear which parties won most of the contests. The PRI apparently managed to hold off strong challenges in two crucial gubernatorial contests, including the all-important State...

Week of June 5
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 05 Jun 2017

An important week for the government, especially for President Michel Temer: the TSE begins discussions in the case that could remove him from power. Allies will monitor the discussions. The PSDB meets on Thursday to discuss the political environment. In the Senate, the government will try to dis...

The Political Crisis and the Economic Picture
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 05 Jun 2017

With a large negative GDP gap and falling inflation, the interest rate will continue to fall, but the Central Bank has already indicated that due to the uncertainties, the next cuts will be smaller. Our projections before the crisis were that the SELIC rate would reach 8% at the end of 2017 and s...

GDP in the First Quarter
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 05 Jun 2017

After two years of contraction, GDP expanded strongly in the first quarter of 2017, at an annualized rate of 4.3%. But the details of this growth show that the improvement was more apparent than real. First, the result was almost totally due to the performance of agriculture, whose output grew by...

GDP for 2016-17 at 7.1% despite demonetization and a slower Q4
INDIA · Report · 05 Jun 2017

The latest release of India’s GDP data indicates that the economy grew at 7.1% for the full year 2016-17. There are two puzzles in this data. The first is that growth in Q3, the demonetization quarter, was higher than Q4, when the pick-up in demand was visible. The second is that even though GDP ...

Headline Lower, Trends Challenging
TURKEY · Report · 05 Jun 2017

Consumer prices rose by 0.45% in May, slightly higher than expected, but the 12-month rate declined as envisaged, to 11.7% from just under 12% in April. The drop in producer prices was more significant, which eased from 16.4% to 15.3%, y/y, suggesting that cost-push pressures have begun to ease, ...

The IMF approves pension reform, the Cabinet reports
UKRAINE · In Brief · 05 Jun 2017

On June 4th the Cabinet put on its web-site scan of a letter from the IMF (see below) which states that the IMF “can support the draft law in its current form”. I do not know what ‘current form’ the IMF is talking about but in any case it’s a good signal for our cooperation with the Fund. By the ...

Don’t Worry, Be Happy–For Now
TURKEY · Report · 04 Jun 2017

Turkey is enjoying an exceptional period of political calm, albeit one enforced by an iron fist. The impending cabinet change is unlikely to signal better policies or early elections. On the other hand, during the transition from the parliamentary to the presidential regime, policy visibility is ...

Goldman Sachs’s controversial operation
VENEZUELA · Report · 02 Jun 2017 · 1 response

The history of the Pdvsa 2022(N) bond sold a few days ago by BCV to Goldman Sachs ($2.8 billion), Nomura Securities ($100 million) and a third yet unidentified institution ($100 million) began in October 2014.

Policy maker appointment to Presidential Administration highlights new media priority ahead of election
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · Report · 02 Jun 2017

Maksut Shadaev, a Moscow minister for IT and social media, is joining the senior ranks of the Presidential Administration – a move that underscores the government’s increased attention to new media policy.

Dicom: An underwhelming debut
VENEZUELA · Report · 02 Jun 2017

BCV published the results of the first auction of the new Dicom system on May 31, 24 hours later than promised. The list of beneficiaries has been published as we write. Experience to date tells us that BCV is afraid of letting the Dicom rate get close to parallel market level. The forex flow ...